Ms. Billy has undergraduate degrees from the University of Arizona and Salish Kootenai College (a tribal college) and she earned a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center. Ms. Billy was appointed by former President William J. Clinton as the inaugural Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges, and she worked in the U.S. Senate for 10 years. Ms. Billy has been the principal investigator on numerous federal and private sector grants, including research awards from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture, the Lumina Foundation, USA Funds, and more.